In the opening minutes of the Washington men’s basketball team’s 72-62 victory, you could tell this game was going to different for C.J. Wilcox.

On the Huskies’ first offensive possession, the junior guard blew past Challe Barton and darted to the middle of the lane where he stopped, pivoted and elevated for a one-hand jumper that sailed over the Oregon State sophomore.

Minutes later, Wilcox sank another short jumper over Barton before connecting on a three-pointer from the corner.

Shots that rimmed out or fell short the past few weeks splashed through the net with regularity Saturday in front of 8,454 at Alaska Airlines Arena

Buoyed by their leading scorer breaking out of an eight-game shooting slump, the Huskies (14-12, 6-7 Pac-12) snapped a three-game losing streak and beat OSU for the first time in three tries.

When asked what was the difference in Wilcox this time as opposed to the previous games, UW coach Lorenzo Romar said smiling: “He made shots.”

Wilcox, who finished with 24 points on 7-for-14 shooting, agreed for the most part.

“It’s better than what it’s been, but there’s still shots that I usually make that still aren’t going down,” he said. “But I’ll take it.

“The whole time I’m just trying to stay confident, knowing I’m going to make the next few in a row. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. I was kind of on and off tonight and staying aggressive definitely helps.”

Wilcox finished with three three-pointers and sank 7 of 8 free throws. He also had six rebounds and three blocks to offset five turnovers.

If not for their 19 turnovers — 13 in the first half — it might have been a perfect game for the Huskies.

They had more rebounds (41-28), more assists (16-11), more blocks (five to two), shot better from the field (50 percent to 33.9 percent) and were more accurate on free throws (73.7 percent to 70.4 percent).